Better Than Love
by Avecia
Summary: One-Shot.  Every second is a lifetime...that's how it feels for him.  How can one thing, one person, break down everything he loved about himself.  His Life.  Being a vampire...


**Title: **Better Than Love

**Disclaimer:** I do not own TVD – I'm just borrowing!

**Rating:** M for language.

**Author's Note: **So this is...well I have no idea what it is, but that's usually how my writing goes! It is a one-shot written to a song called 'Better Than Love' by a band called Hurts. Now they are a British band that I thought nobody would know, BUT, one of their other tracks called 'Wonderful Life' was in the season 2 premier of the show! It's in the scene at the Lockwood Mansion where Jeremy and Tyler share a heart to heart. I seriously recommend going to you-tube and search for Better Than Love – it's the first result that comes up. (Yeah they look a bit weird but the song is awesome!)

So, this is an insight into Damon's mind. A dangerous place to go but I went, I saw, I conquered (hopefully). It's different to what I normally write but I hope you still enjoy it. Let me know what you think.

Finally, a huge thanks to Rika (Zoraya Windwalker). I have missed her so much this week whilst she's been away! She beta'd this chapter and made such wonderful suggestions to improve it that I can't thank her enough. If not for her, I doubt you would like this one-shot at all! You are wonderful my dear!

Ave x

* * *

_**Every second is a lifetime**_

How true. He'd been on this planet for almost 170 years. And every second that goes by feels like a life sentence. Sometimes he wished it would just be over. Wished someone would stake him or set him alight. Then he remembered he _liked_ being a living, _dead_, person. Being the eternal stud.

_**And every minute more brings you closer to God**_

He had no need for religion. He was raised a catholic, but after a few months of rampant vampirism, he decided he couldn't really reconcile the beliefs he was always told would guide him through life with his new strive after '_sex, blood and rock n roll'_. Besides, can you imagine _that_ encounter in the confessional?

_**And you see nothing but the red lights**_

When it comes over him it's like this red haze and it descends before he knows it's even happening. He always found it strange…the redness of it all. Red was universal for 'stop', 'danger' or 'do not proceed' but this was different. It was like those buttons you would see – the big red ones with a 'do not touch' sign above it. You can't ignore it. You go so far just to _touch_ that button. To _push_ it. It was like a haze, every time; he wanted to push the button and before he knows it he's sinking his teeth into the neck of some poor girl. And it feels …_ incredible._ Every single time.

_**You let your body burn like never before**_

Every now and again, he would remove his ring and stand in the shade of the drapes, gently moving his fingers into the rays of morning sunshine streaming through the gaps. It stung like a bitch, but it served a purpose. When he's not feeling like himself, pissed at something his morally anal brother has said or done, he likes to remind himself that he's not _really_ immortal, that life is not to be taken for granted. But mostly, it's to ensure that he doesn't ever turn into the brooding mess that his brother thinks is _sexy_. God no. He could be dead. He wasn't about to bury himself in self-hate and whatnot. He would already be dead, if it wasn't for what he was now.

_**And it feels better than love**_

It was who he was. It consumed him, from head to toe, inside and out. He had a choice once to suffer and die in the name of love, but that was before his naïve little brother interfered and delivered temptation into his lap. Still, if given the choice of eternity as a vampire or become human again and find love, he doesn't think he would choose any differently. There is no choice. Besides, the ability to turn his feelings off at the flick of a switch, wouldn't you if you could?

_**Another second in the sunshine**_

Unlike most vampires, he liked the sun. Although, most other vampires didn't have a nifty magic ring to protect them from the deathly rays. Lying in the day, looking at the sky, he was thankful he could still appreciate the finer things in life. Wearing his favourite pair of Ray-Bans, short sleeve t-shirts, girls in bikinis…it made him feel like there was something still _normal_ about his life. Not that he didn't like being a creature of the night, no, but more so because he was able to blend in, become part of the crowd…use that to his advantage.

_**A decade in the dark taking part in a dream**_

Still, it wasn't always like that. For the first ten years of his _existence_ he buried himself in his grief. Losing the woman he loved, having to kill to survive, becoming a monster. It took time to learn how to switch all of that off. And even if he could do it during the day, when he was awake, it didn't stop his guilt visiting him at night in his subconscious. And dammit, nobody told him that vampires were still able to dream.

_**Have you forgotten what she looks like?**_

The first time he saw her he didn't even think about his old flame. All he remembers about it is thinking how strikingly beautiful she is, and how that vein throbbing in her neck is just begging to be tapped. Then he sees it, the resemblance. But he can overlook that, because really that's just his luck. Once again beaten to the beautiful girl by his brother. But he doesn't dwell, instead he simply factors it in to his calculated and diabolical plans. After all, he is still a vampire.

_**Or do you only see what you want to believe?**_

He wants to believe it is mere coincidence. But haven't we been through all of this? He's not that lucky. And when he realizes that he was the one who tore into her mother and turned that scheming woman into his own kind, he knew that they were related. Only _her_ descendants could be so cruel as to deliver him a twist of fate such as this.

_**Does it feel better than love?**_

Sinking his teeth into another sorority girl does the trick…for about 30 seconds or so, until he's done draining her… he leaves just enough blood so it won't kill her. He didn't even try to get her to sleep with him before tearing into her neck. When did he start caring if they lived or died? And why wasn't this satisfying his hunger anymore?

_**Turn away, turn away, close your eyes**_

If he could drive a stake into that bitch's heart in return for her completely unwarranted and third party declaration of his supposed love for _her_, he would make it _hurt_. More than anyone he's ever killed. Because the Teacher's ex-wife's very vocal epiphany about the inner workings of this vampire's mind and un-beating heart hurt a hundred times less than the look in _her_ eyes as her mother walked away. The fear in those eyes, killed him like a symbolic stake to _his_ heart. But instead he chose to close his own and just walk away.

_**You can runaway**_

He could leave. It's not like he could stay there forever. People would start to talk sooner or later. And he could leave the modern day Romeo and Juliet to their own devices. This town was far too boring for his liking anyway. He could go somewhere nobody would know him. Somewhere that he could relax and find the inner vampire once again.

_**It's not enough**_

But who is he kidding. That switch has been flipped and it's a struggle to even find it anymore, let alone figure out how to turn it back off. Not with _her_ around.

_**I see the lights through the rain, oh tonight**_

Every now and again he would stand outside her window, looking up into her room (_now who's the wannabe Romeo? It makes him feel sick_). He could just jump right up there and go in. Rip her throat out and be done with it. Because if he didn't, he was sure she would kill him first. And not just with a stake or fire.

_**But they never change**_

Yet he doesn't. And he begins to avoid her. Avoid _them_.

_**So what is love?**_

He's given up trying to figure it out. For a while (_read decades_) he thought it was waiting 145 years to free his love from a tomb. But finding out she was never in there _kind of_ turns you into a skeptic. 145 years is nothing compared to eternity being a Vampire – his one greatest love of all.

_**Does it feel better than love?**_

Yet, he's not so sure anymore. Gradually he figures out that sometimes fleeting moments of his time spent with _her_, in the _here_ and _now_, mean more in his _heart_ than two human lifetimes searching for some_thing_ buried in the past.

_**Does it feel better than love?**_

When she looks at him like she's seeing the humanity in him, the humanity he forgot about long ago…well he's not sure of anything anymore.

* * *

_Good? Bad? Rather inject yourself with a syringe of vervain? Tell me what you think...Much Love, Ave x_


End file.
